[This article is part of the Learner's Maya Glyph Guide.]
CMGG entry for unen k'awiil

Translation: God-GII of the Palenque Triad
Part of speech: Noun

Spellings of unen k'awiil

                                                                                                        

MC.p118.r2.#2.1&2                                 (lost reference, very similar to M&G.p159)                T1030f               T1030g

UNEN+K’AWIIL                                          UNEN+K’AWIIL                                                                 -                          -

 

                                                                                                                                            

Schele                              Schele                             Schele                             Schele                              Schele                             Schele                                Schele                             

PAL TI ET A9                    PAL TI ET C12                PAL TI ET E10                 PAL TI CT E1                    PAL TI CT F6                   PAL TI CT K9                      PAL TI WT B5                        

UNEN+K’AWIIL               UNEN+K’AWIIL             UNEN+K’AWIIL               UNEN+K’AWIIL               UNEN+K’AWIIL             UNEN+K’AWIIL                  UNEN+K’AWIIL         

 

                                                                                                                                                                               

Stuart-TIfTXIX.p80.fig54                                          Stuart-TIfTXIX.p88.fig61                                                Stuart-TIfTXIX.p104.fig75                             

PAL Temple 19 Platform South Side J6                 PAL Temple 19 Platform South Side O6                     PAL Temple 19 Platform West Side F8     

UNEN+K’AWIIL                                                          UNEN+K’AWIIL                                                                UNEN+K’AWIIL                                             

 

·    This glyph is a conflation of UNEN and K’AWIIL, with the latter (normally a full head with “LEM” and “flames”) reduced to either “LEM” and “flames” or even to just “LEM”.

·    This conflation of the two glyphs corresponds to T1030f/T1030g. The state of decipherment in Thompson’s time was not sufficiently advanced for him to know that this is a conflation of two logograms. In fact, Thompson assigned the codes T1030a, T1030b, … to T1030q (17 variants in total) to the “same” basic code of T1030, while the relevant glyphs include K’AWIIL (T1030abcdeh), UNEN+K’AWIIL (T1030fg), YOPAAT (T1030ijk), and even KAL(OOM) (T1030lmn), HUUN (T1030o), TUUN (T1030p), CHAAK (T1030q).

o Bonn has retained 1030xx for K’AWIIL, and made all the other variants defunct (assigned to their appropriate code).

o MHD has done something similar, with MHD.SMA corresponding to 1030xx = K’AWIIL.

·    This happens to be the name of God-GII of the Palenque Triad: Unen K’awiil = “The Baby K’awiil”. For this reason, it occurs quite frequently in PAL inscriptions, further causing Thompson to think that it’s a single logogram/glyph.